Creative Nonfiction

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A North-South-Trending, Nested Graben
By Gregory T. Janetka

“I call 'em like I see 'em,” Danny says, laughing, after having described one woman at the dog park as “having her head up her ass,” and another as having a “camel hat” to go with her “camel butt.” I laugh too, although I have no idea what a camel hat or butt entails. A retired ex-Navy man now in his late 60s, I met Danny the last time I was in San Diego to visit my sister. He's offensive but harmless (and hilarious) and remembers me from years before, ready to immediately accept me back into the inner circle.

My sister left me with Rummy, her 100 pound cuddly beast of a bulldog, for a week. The morning is cool and he is full of energy. The palm fronds rustle in the breeze and the bell signals a train coming into the station as we make our way over to Little Italy. Out of sight saws and jackhammers indicate the city hasn't finished growing yet. Car horns honk. Stopped at the crossing I look up and watch as a woman steps out onto her balcony several stories up, topless. Realizing where she is, she throws her arms across her chest and runs back inside. A different beeping noise indicates we can cross the street.

Weaving our way through the city, we meander into Little Italy. This early on a nondescript Tuesday, the neighborhood is quiet as we turn onto First Street. The lazy morning is shattered as a man staring at the sidewalk begins yelling nonsense. All I can pick out is “Everything I touch turns to shit” as Rummy barks in disapproval. He doesn't like crazy. Calming him, we turn to see a shabby looking man walk past wearing several sombreros of varying sizes. He says nothing. We duck inside a local coffee house and I order an espresso. Loud yelling guy has circled back. He is talking to everybody and nobody.

The barista holds out a dog treat and in return receives a hand full of slobber. I apologize and thank her. I savor the thick black liquid as we make our way down to the water. The air is crisp and clean, the cleanest I've ever encountered in a big city at least. Purple trees line the way. What were they called? Someone told me multiple times but I still don't remember.

I notice a man on the other side of the street swinging a stick around. I stop and squint through the sun to see two older men at a bus stop playing baseball with a cane. I can't tell what they're using for a ball. The one in a white t-shirt looks very serious as he checks the imaginary runner on first before going into his windup and delivering the ball. A swinging strike. The one in a black t-shirt bends down to pick up the ball, reveling the top of his ass. I appear to be the only one taking in the scene. They throw a glance my way and Rummy and I proceed on.

Tourists mill about the boardwalk near the Maritime Museum. The Star of India, a tall ship, sits in harbor. As a child I'd always wanted to be a pirate – out on the seas, free and happy. “God their lives must have been miserable,” I think, and consciously decide to hold on to the romanticized version of history instead. What would it hurt?

Everything is so clean in the city. Except for when it's not. Then it reeks of urine and human suffering. It's exceptionally clean here by the water. For the tourists, sure, but it's nice nonetheless. I sit on a bench to people watch as Rummy settles in beside me, happy for a break. In the span of a few minutes I'm offered a ride by two pedicab drivers, both of which I politely refuse.

A girl in skin tight jeans slowly walks past, her arms full of coffee, a large handbag and her phone, which she isn't looking at. I try not to be too obvious when I look at her but keep looking anyway. She doesn't seem like a tourist, isn't even turning her head at the massive, historical ships. Maybe she's just like most of my generation and has no care for things unless they're immediate and/or digital. She's beautiful, but I quickly conclude I could never afford her and let her go, saying goodbye in my head to something else that'll never happen.

I throw back the last of the espresso, savoring each drop, toss the cup in the trash and breath in the sea air. I rub my face with my hands, hard, and picture what life would be like if I did have money and moved here and met that girl and watched her put on those jeans in the morning and take them off at night and say goodbye to her as she leaves our place to walk to work, passing the ships on her way.

Another pedicab pulls up and the fantasy is broken by a white guy with dreads.

“No thanks,” I say, fingering the last two quarters in my pocket. “We prefer to walk.”
 

Gregory T. Janetka is a writer from Chicago who unwittingly finds himself living in Huntsville, Alabama. He spends most of his time there looking in from the outside and drinking tea with his cat.

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RED PETTICOAT
By John King

The tall, slender young woman is standing by her desk near the front of the empty classroom.  The fact that her hair is pulled back tightly cannot disguise the reality that she is barely out of her teenage years, and the severe cut of the gray dress, together with her sensible shoes, gives no hint that beneath it all she is wearing a red petticoat. 

   Ella surveys the room, which is her domain.  School is about to start on this crisp autumn day, as she once again thinks about how far Central Texas is from her home in Illinois, and from the Normal school that she attended there in order to get her teaching degree.  As she looks around the room, at the chairs and small desks for the twenty-three children she is teaching, she notices little Bobby Ellis peeking around the edge of the cloakroom door. 

           
“Robert, good morning.”

           
 Bobby is unable to speak, but looks shyly at his shoes.

          
“Robert, since you are the first one here this morning, you get to ring the school bell.”  She smiles at her youngest pupil, wondering if he can actually reach the bell rope.  Soon she knows the answer, as the bell begins to peal, and her students, ranging from Bobby’s age of six years up to age fourteen, begin to trickle into the classroom.

         
  “Good morning, Miss Rodecker.”  As each child comes in, they wish her a good morning, and she promptly responds, calling them each by name.  The second year of teaching is much easier than the first.  It seems that the children are soaking up the knowledge she wants to give them so much more readily. 

           
After a few minutes, she manages to seat all of the children, wish them a good morning, instruct them to take out their books, and to open their daily materials.  As she turns to the blackboard, she notices the American flag centered above it, with its candy stripes and the forty-four stars in six rows.  The top row has eight, the bottom row has eight, and the other four rows have seven each.  The pictures on each side of the flag are of George Washington, President Cleveland, Sam Houston, and Robert E. Lee.   Every time that she sees the picture of Robert E. Lee, it gives her a little start, to think that she, the daughter of a Union veteran, should be teaching beneath the picture of the great Confederate general.  When she first took over her classroom, she had thought about taking it down, but the strangest thing had happened.  A man barely older than she had come to the schoolhouse one late afternoon and asked her if she was the schoolteacher, even though the answer was so obvious.  When she replied in the affirmative, he had asked if he could come later in the afternoons and if she would teach him to read and write.  At the time, Ella had met none of the local people her own age, and, on an impulse, agreed to mentor the young man.  On the second or third session, she had mentioned taking down Robert E. Lee’s picture.  He looked at her very seriously, and he said “Ma’am, it’s been barely thirty years since he surrendered at Appomattox.  People around here still think that Marse Robert is the greatest American hero.  In addition, not only are you a Yankee, but you have a German last name.  The Germans down at New Braunfels, just over fifty miles from here, tried to sneak through the Texan lines to join the Union army.  Some of them were caught and killed, and there’s still bad blood about that.  I would recommend that no matter how you feel, you should leave that picture in place.”

          
Ella thinks back about that conversation and realizes once again what a strange place this Central Texas is.  As she looks at the third picture, she thinks about Sam Houston and Texas history.  Even though she obtained her teaching degree, she had had to study Texas history on the long train ride from Illinois to Austin so she could pass the teaching certification test as soon as she got there.  At the time, she felt so brave, leaving Illinois at age nineteen to go to a frontier state like Texas, but whatever trepidation she might have felt was quelled by her interest in history.  While in Illinois, she was not aware of the fact that Texas had been a separate country, nor that Sam Houston had been not only the president of Texas, but also its first governor when it was admitted as a state.  To make Texas seem even more quirky, she learned that Sam Houston had been the governor again in 1861 when Texas voted to secede from the Union, and that he refused to sign the secession papers, believing that Texas, after working so hard to become a part of the Union, should not leave it.  Houston was removed as governor, the lieutenant governor was promoted and signed the papers, and Houston died two years later, from what some said was a broken heart.

           
Ella hears the whispering behind her and turns around, glaring at the pupils.  The older pupils are a little bit hard to control, since they are within six years of her own age, but it still has to be done. 

          
“Each of you take out the materials that I gave you for homework last night.  All of you older section students begin to read the third chapter of your book, and I want all of you younger section students to come sit down in this corner while we start working again on your ABCs.”

           
Ella begins the little ones on their ABCs, and then looks out the window, since there is dust drifting through and she can hear the sound of cattle going by.  She is aware that Texas’ economy is based on the cattle industry, and that American literature has already been infused with a new genre talking of the cowboys riding the trails from Texas up to the railheads in Kansas in order to ship the cattle east where they were so needed.  However, the trail drives are now a thing of the past, since the railheads have moved, and Austin itself, some twenty miles southeast of the schoolhouse, is a railhead, and cattle are driven from all the surrounding areas into Austin.  She watches the large herd of cattle going by, and smiles at the sight of the young cowboys, many of them teenagers, dressed up for the last leg of their journey into Austin.  It seems as if all of them have brushed their hats, buffed their boots, and have fresh bandanas at their throats.  She knows that this is only one of probably three or four groups that will go by that day, and each time there will be more dust sifting into the classroom.  Thank goodness it is Friday, because on Saturday the students’ fathers will come to the classroom and help her clean.  None of them can afford the full tuition, so part of the cost of having their children schooled is to give several hours every week to cleaning and maintaining the small one-room schoolhouse.

           
After the little ones finish the ABCs, Ella gathers them back with the older ones, and starts their civics lesson.

“Richard?”

“Yes, Miss.” 

“Richard, can you tell us what we mean when we say that President Cleveland is the first President elected to non-successive terms of office?”

           
Dickie Johnson looks down at his slate, hoping that the answer will somehow appear, or, in the alternative, that there will be an earthquake where he will be swallowed up and not have to demonstrate to the other older children that he has no idea what the answer to the teacher’s question might be. 

           
Suddenly, Dickie feels the schoolhouse begin to shake, and the earth itself begins to tremble.  “Oh, my” Ella says, thinking how stupid it sounds to make such a statement in front of the children, and then “None of you leave your seats, stay right where you are.”  While the children begin talking among themselves, Ella runs to the door, and looks down the steps.  Coming toward her, several hundred yards away, is a mass of cattle, and what she knows is called a stampede.  Some of the young cowboys are trying their best to stop the cattle, but all they are doing is guiding them more directly toward the schoolhouse.  She knows she doesn’t have time to move the students, and she also knows that the clapboard building is too fragile to withstand the impact of several hundred large bodies. 

          
She yells back through the door to the oldest boy, Glen, “Shut the door and lock it!”  She can hear Glen following her instructions and she looks again at the mass of cattle coming closer.  She is too concerned for her charges to think of her own safety.  She runs to the bottom of the steps, and, oblivious to whomever might be looking, raises her skirt and rips off her petticoat.  Once she manages to detach the garment, she waves it from one side to t he other and begins to scream like a Comanche Indian.  She screams as the cattle approach, she screams more as the cattle continue coming closer.  She screams and waves, waves and screams, until the front cattle begin to be spooked even worse than they were, and begin to part around her, and by definition, around the schoolhouse.  The young cowboys trying to turn the herd realize what is happening, and fan further away, to let the cattle part on either side of the schoolhouse.  They continue to race their horses as fast as they can in order to stop the herd before it damages something else further down the road.  As the last cow runs by, Ella collapses at the bottom of the schoolhouse steps.  She begins to shake so hard that she can no longer hold the petticoat in her hand.  Her only thought at that moment is that she will not cry.  She will not cry.

           
Suddenly, she hears another set of galloping hooves.  She recognizes the sound as only one animal, and looks up expecting to see one of the young cowboys.  Instead, the animal coming towards her is neither a cow nor a horse.  Its rider guides his mule within just a few feet, jumps off, and stands before her.  Unlike the cowboys with their shiny boots and their neckerchiefs, he is wearing a flannel shirt and a nondescript hat, a pair of patched overalls, and Brogans.  He looks like what he is, which is a young farmer.  When Ella sees him, all thoughts of crying are gone, and her eyes light up.  “Why, John Lawson King, what are you doing here?”

“Miss Rodecker –"

             
“John, after a year I think it’s time you called me Ella.”

“Well, then, Ella, I saw the cattle heading toward the school, and I just couldn’t get ahead of them.  I tried so hard, because I believed there was something in that schoolhouse that I couldn’t live without.” 

“John, what a testament to learning.” 

“I mean, Ella . . . you have to know what I am talking about.”

          
Suddenly, John does not look like just a tall young farmer; he looks closer to the proverbial knight in shining armor.  And his mule, shaggy and gray, could just as easily be one of the finest chargers ridden by a knight of the round table. 

           
Suddenly, Ella realizes that the children had come to the windows, and are staring at the trampled ground, at her with her red petticoat at her feet, and the young farmer standing in front of her. 

“Well, John” she says, as she scrambles off the step and up to her feet, “I certainly appreciate your concern, and I think you need to come back to class later so we can talk about some of those verb conjugations you were working on.”

He looks at her, at the young woman he now knows is going to be his wife, feels a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth and says, “Yes, ma’am, I will certainly be here.  I couldn’t live without conjugating verbs – or parsing sentences.”  

John reaches down to pick up what appears to be a red rag on the ground.  Ella stops him, saying “If you touch that, I will slap your jaws.”  John jerks his hand away, mutters “Yes, ma’am,” and then gets onto the back of his mule.  “I will see you later,” he says, and rides away.

With that, Ella kicks the ragged petticoat under the steps, smoothes her dress and hair, and walks toward the schoolhouse door, pursing her lips to stop the smile she knows is coming.

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John King is a student in the Master of Liberal Studies program at the Glasscock School at Rice University. He lives with his wife Elizabeth in McAllen, Texas, where he enjoys the full time practice of law while commuting the 345 miles to Houston for class on a weekly basis.

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Embracing the (Not-Yet-Fully-Formed) Teenage Brain
By Marty Ross-Dolen

The other night my son Sam and I were arguing at the dinner table. It started when he asked me if I would stay home and let Dad take him to his driving test alone. My feelings were hurt, which seemed to me understandable, and as I put down my fork I explained to him that this was a milestone in his life that I didn't want to miss and, as his mother, I wanted to be there to give him a big hug when it was over. 

He would have none of it. He retorted angrily that I make him nervous, that I put way too much pressure on him, and that “Dad is the one who really taught [him] how to drive anyway.” I countered, feeling equally irate, pointing out that I had taken him driving almost as much as Dad and had taught him just as many rules of the road. What I didn't mention, of course, was what he also knew: Regardless of my willingness to get into his passenger seat, I would say a silent prayer before each venture, hoping it would not be my last, and that I would grip both arm rests with sweaty palms while practicing breathing exercises for the whole of the jaunt.

“This isn't about you, Mom,” Sam pointed out, exasperated and speaking the truth while leaning back in his chair, balancing on the two hind legs in that way that I regularly ask him not to. 

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           No one ever told me that as a parent I would experience so much loss. Within weeks after his birth Sam grew out of his 3-month-size onesies, and as soon as I was dressing him in 6-month-size clothes, I had lost my lean newborn and gained a pudgy, smiling infant. With the onset of steps and words, I lost the baby and gained a toddler, and with jungle gyms and visits from the tooth fairy, the toddler left my side, and I welcomed a child.

           And although it has been years now of mourning the loss of one stage while being introduced to another, I didn't expect to be quite so blindsided the way I have been by Sam’s adolescence.  I imagine this is due in part to his new height—the fact that he grew six inches in less than a year. Once a baby in my arms, born long at 20½ inches, he now towers over me sixteen years later, and I have to gaze upward to make eye contact with him. His voice is deep, his legs are hairy, and when he wants to show me kindness, he engulfs me in his arms or offers to rub my shoulders, his hands big enough to reach from my clavicles in the front to my scapulae in the back and actually work through the tense muscles in between.

           I miss the boy that used to sit on my lap, the lightness of who he was, the one who liked to wear the T-shirt with the picture of the tortoise on the front. I miss his lack of knowing, his innocence, his short legs, his bangs, the cowlicks in his hair, the basement floor filled with Legos, his little pairs of underpants, how he couldn't fall asleep without Lambie (the stuffed animal that I had to restuff, redress, and re-sew, twice). I miss my little boy, and, although I resist the thought every day, I can’t help but feel that he has disappeared.

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           So, meanwhile, I’m supposed to parent my teenage son and mourn the loss of my little boy at once. And this isn’t easy, because as much as I adore this new young man that has moved into my house, I only intermittently like him. He snaps at me, throws sneers my way, would rather chat with his friend-who-is-a-girl than let me in. He knows better than I do, almost always, and I watch him as he forges his way through his future, throws the picnic blanket that is his life onto the grass, welcoming the offers of delicacies that he may or may not like, preparing to bring the four corners together at once, hoist the whole over his shoulder, tie it to a stick, and begin his onward trek that is in the opposite direction of me.

           But then he will surprise me. We will be sitting on the couch next to one another, and I will be telling him why he has frustrated me (he forgot to take out the garbage again) or why he has scared me (I told him to be home by midnight) or why I worry about his ability to take care of himself one day (a single bag of potato chips for lunch is not a nutritious meal). And I will always remind him that I love him and nothing will change that. Then he leans his heavy body toward mine and wraps me in his long arms and puts his big head in my lap. And we sit there, for a long time, in silence, and I run my fingers through his thick black hair, still fraught with cowlicks. And I think that maybe my little boy isn't actually gone. Maybe he’s just hidden away.

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My greatest challenge in raising Sam has been guiding him into the person that he is meant to be on his own, rather than the person that I would be if I were him. It would be easy to expect him to play the roles I wish I’d played, follow the rules that I ignored, and turn into a miniature male version of myself, only better, without all the mistakes. But the way that he bucks me, wants me off his back, changes his passwords without my knowing to keep me away, keep me at bay, makes it nearly impossible for me to control his youth the way I feel I am charged to as his mother. 

Of course, I know that I am supposed to be letting him go. Intellectually, this makes perfect sense. He has reached an age and the physical ability to make a lot of his own decisions without me. And I do believe that I have managed to instill in him some core values that will keep him kind and caring toward others, mostly honest, and respectful of society. So in some ways I know that I am ahead of the game.

But what if I could have been there, helped him make that decision that he makes, the one that leads to something devastating and irreversible? Perhaps I could have warned him about getting into that car or taking all those drugs at once or not heeding the warning signals when that train was coming. I will explain to the police officer that I tried to tell him, that I offered to stay with him, always, that I promised I would keep him safe. And then I will fall into a heap, a lifeless bag of bones and skin, and I won’t rise up, ever, through all my remaining years. I will spend the rest of my life there, in that place, the place where I will become hollow, the place where I will lose my soul, become a mere skeleton of myself. The place where I was told that my beloved son is dead.

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The opportunities for my mere presence to embarrass Sam over the years have been in great abundance. But never have I felt more publicly unwanted than I do now by my sixteen-year-old son. When he refuses to be seen in town with me, ducking in the car if we pass a friend or insisting on takeout rather than dining in a neighborhood restaurant, I must remind myself of the moments that we have when we’re alone together, brief wisps of time when he might ask me for advice or see if I’ll test him on his flash cards. Times when I’m not the enemy, the rule maker, the embarrassing mother. Times when I can hope to instill yet one more piece of wisdom, beg him to heed one more warning.

And I must remember that this stage, like every other one in its wake, will be gone forever too. That soon I will be losing my sixteen-year-old to a seventeen-year-old, and so on, and so on. Before long we will be celebrating his high school graduation, and then college will likely follow, with maybe more school after that, or a job. Perhaps he will move far away from me, or maybe he will return home, temporarily, before he marries, or doesn't, or has children, or doesn't. 

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“Please don’t do that to the chair,” I requested, and as Sam settled the two front chair legs back to the floor, I took a bite of my pasta and sat quietly before attempting to explain my reaction. I knew that his request that I not attend his driving test didn't mean that I was a terrible mother. But I still couldn't help but feel that the very essence of my role as a parent was at stake.

“Sam,” I said, “I think this conversation would have gone a lot better if you had asked me not to go to your driving test in a different way. Instead, you could have said, ‘Mom, thank you so much for helping me learn how to drive. I just wonder if it would be okay with you if Dad took me to the test alone, because I will feel less nervous that way.’”

Sam put down his fork and looked at me. 

“Mom, I’m sorry,” he said slowly, with a continued effort to contain that part of him that wanted to explode.  “I’m sorry that my brain is not fully formed yet, and that I am not able to put words together and formulate sentences in the way that you can, given that you have lived thirty years longer than I have.”

With that, a secret, knowing smile formed in my heart. 

It’s okay, Sam, I thought. Take your time. There’s no rush.

Marty Ross-Dolen is a retired child psychiatrist currently staying home to raise her two children. She devotes her time to writing and volunteering in her community. She has attended several writing conferences and three graduate-level creative nonfiction classes at The Ohio State University. Her work is forthcoming in Forge.
 

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Drowning in Clarity
By Chila Woychik

The water swirls first in one place then another, large concentric circles expanding wider and wider before gently merging with the stiller water around it. This could mean bass, or maybe northern pike; the lake contains both. A strong cool wind fits and stammers. The gray clouds have moved eastward and the sun glares above. Wind and sun, wind and sun: braided felicity.

We’ve found a sheltered spot here, a friend and I. We sit in foldable director’s chairs. She draws; I write. She wears a cap. We are artsy.

A blue-black dragonfly rides atop a second dragonfly. This is not spring mating; this is not spring. This is merely animal attraction in July. I look at my friend; she is drawing a tree.

The weeds are flowers, blooming, bloomed, green and white and some parts brown, the dying, dead. Lavender is here too, tinges of pink. These too will brown one day but today they bliss my world with vibrance. I reel in wonder in the inner woman; the beauty is my lunch, the dying my dessert.

The dragonfly thrums—a mating ritual? A bumble bee engages a clover blossom nearby then another and another. It inches closer. I move to avoid confrontation. Once when I was young, I went walking barefoot in our yard and stepped on a group of bees, they tell me. They tell me it was a horrible experience, the yelling, the swelling, the fear. They told me years ago and it’s stuck with me since, and stinger-like it lingers. I move my director’s chair a second and third time, and the bee moves on, disregards me, knows it makes the stronger point.

Trees ring this large manmade lake—a nuclear power plant reservoir lake—and provide a home for deer and nameless other creatures, fisher folk. There are walking trails and airplane-sized mosquitoes, riding trails and gnats that strike and welt, an area for campers and numberless no-see-ums with no-regard. I’ve seen snakes. The question as always is what price we will pay for an excursion into nature, and is the heart brave enough, the skin thick enough?

A ringing like a cell phone occurs a short distance away. My purse is suspect but it’s only a bird. And it’s a sad day when I can no longer identify the innocence of a bird call. (I silently condemn technological intrusions while thanking the powers that be for bug spray in technologically-brilliant pump bottles.)

A spurt of wind bursts through the trees behind me and another in front. My hair explodes at the convergence of the two. Before I know it, I find myself clinging to my chair in neck-high water. I panic. I yell. My immediate concern is that I will be forgotten in the end.

My companion sits calmly by and continues to draw. She may be on the leaves now and it’s intricate work. I flail my arms but it’s no use; I can’t swim. The seconds are years then an eternity, but the chair holds. I believe, then, that I can make it to shore because my left big toe touches a rock. The moss is soft, the rock’s size is moderate; my confidence grows.

Then a stealthy slipping around occurs at my ankle, on the left foot that touches the rock. It wraps around, this slipping thing, completes the ligature, once, twice, three times. Bees come to mind, but I can’t move my chair this time, can’t escape the threat. I feel sick and worry more and yell louder, the loudest yet. Still, the woman draws. She may want to sign it Van Gogh.

The gripping thing yanks and I go down, dragged along for feet or yards, I’m not sure, I just know it’s down and some along. I’m gulping water now and air is spent, the “life flashing before my eyes” nonsense flashes too, and it’s real as the Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Brownie single serving ice cream I had earlier in the day—this is how real.

I can’t see it—this thing. It continues to pull me backward through the water. If only I could flip over, get a better position, but I can’t swim.

The water is blue, no, never blue but in swimming pools and films (ever notice how the older movies of ocean scenes actually looked like ocean scenes and not a Hollywood swimming pool made up to look like an ocean like many of today’s ocean scenes?). Khaki is the color. With patches of shimmering silver where the wind riffles along the top of it and lifts it slightly. Khaki, dark, and deep. Close up to the windswept shore is detritus, fallen leaves, algae, me. Dead things breaking down into simpler matter.

The view is beyond spectacular so I go limp, quit fighting, watch and learn. I sketch in my mind’s eye. My brain absorbs the water and the words.

I write from shore, close to shore, from my director’s chair. My friend lays her 7B pencil aside. A dog barks from a boat nearby; maybe he too seeks sense beyond ringing technology and weediness, and maybe, like me, the wind and sun shamble his conceit.

And daisies. There are daisies on the hillside. My vision has cleared once more.

 

Chila Woychik lives in Iowa with her husband, a couple of Jeeps, and chickens that lay green eggs. When not working the farmstead, she edits at a small literary press. Her latest published pieces appeared in or are forthcoming in The Mayo Review & Cleaver. 

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